[Interdisciplinary connections of neurosurgery in the past, present and future]

Giving examples derived from history, the development and the present level of neurosurgery as an expression of the close interdisciplinary co-operation are dealt with. Neurosurgery has shown to be useful in our days and will continue to do so the future as a link between the great number of medical and non-medical disciplines; it has integrative functions, the roots of which frequently reach back to the beginnings of the disciplines, and these functions call for a constant further maintenance of the interests of the people concerned reaching far beyond their own fields. In this way, the neurosurgeon can avoid to become only a marginal figure in the sense of the surgical assistant of other medical disciplines. Being conscious of the history of one's own field often gives surprisingly important information about one's future development and permits an analysis of one's daily work.